François' great
grandparents were New Englanders who were captured by the Abenaki as children and grew up among them, marrying as young
adults. His father, Francis Annance, was one of a group
of four boys who, as a result of Protestant missionary
activity, were sent to school in New Hampshire. Francis
Noel attended Moor's Indian Charity School as a young adult.
He was in the Columbia District in 1820 as an employee
of the North West Company and was retained by the Hudson's
Bay Company. He returned to the Abenaki village of St.
Francis in 1845. For biographies, see Fleming 1940:426;
Williams 1975:200; and Maclachlan 1993:35-9.

~*~

François
was listed as the father of three boys in the report McDonald
sent in February 1830. One son was born on 23 December
1826 (McDonald 1826:13d), and one of the three was drowned
(Annance 1832)

~*~

François
found that a whiteman's education did not bring him the
privileges he desired. The Native strain in his mixed
blood prevented him from rising above the role of Indian
Trader or postmaster. Foster 1975 describes the
position of Indian trader as one to which the mixed-blood
children of the fur trade aspired, but François was not born
or raised in fur trade society and had undoubtedly been given
reason to believe that his superior education would provide
him with the same opportunities as other clerks. James
McMillan felt that either François Annance or Donald Manson
could have taken charge of Fort Langley, and he found
François "as usual very useful" (McMillan
1827b:17) but George Simpson chose to leave Archibald
McDonald in that position.

Foster 1975 is Foster, John E. 1975.
The Indian trader in the Hudson's Bay fur trade
tradition. In Proceedings of the
2d Congress, Canadian Ethnology Society 2:571-85.
Mercury Series Paper 28. Ottawa: National Museum
of Man.

I have read that Noel
[François] had three sons. One of them died at a young
age, I think his name was John. The youngest son,
Archie came back east with his father. Would you have
any info to share about any of the three sons? Archie
made quite a name for himself here.

Did you know that
there is an island, and just recently a street in Vancouver
named for Noel? There is also an island in the St. Francis river in Quebec named for him. I have tons
of info if you are interested. The only thing that I am
lacking is the name of one of Noel's sons.